Unchained (34 page)

“
Too small to be of any
practical use,” Decker thought aloud. “Maybe a control center or
part of a security grid.” He glanced around and frowned. “It might
be used to access something underground.”

“
With an armed guard
standing watch?” Rourke asked. “Must be some real special
infrastructure down there. Wouldn’t you say?”

Rourke and Decker looked at each other and
grinned.

Cidra tried to take in as much of the
underground layout as possible while the shuttle whisked silently
down one side of the wide tunnel toward Tausek’s tower. She spotted
Stoll riding in the shuttle in front of them and shuddered
involuntarily at the thought of such a cruel man wielding so much
power.

Wedged between Grey and Lieutenant Fiske in
the center seats of the shuttle, she could only glimpse an
occasional intersecting passageway in the endless and monotonous
underground world. She wondered where in this maze Plass was.
Despite his role in her past, he had earned her respect and her
concern. His fate was now as grim as their own.

Cidra tried to push the desperation of their
situation to the back of her mind. It proved a futile effort.
Without Fiske, the entire plan was ruined. They had trusted him
implicitly with the communications, making him a critical link in
the plan to broadcast Tausek’s confession. She couldn’t believe she
had been so completely deceived. But the moment he had taken his
position next to Stoll, she had watched the youthful, innocent face
turn hard and cold. His whole body had matured in a flash. Only now
could she see the years in his eyes.

Maybe Grey was right. Trust was an
illusion.

Next to her, Lieutenant Fiske abruptly
fumbled with the micropad he was reviewing and it fell to the
shuttle floor beside her foot. He bent low over her knee to pick it
up. She froze as his hand slid under her pants and slipped
something cool and flat inside her boot. He retrieved the micropad
and straightened in his seat, turning his attention once again to
the unit as if nothing had happened.

Cidra stared straight ahead
in stunned disbelief and fought the overwhelming urge to look at
him. Instead, she wiggled her foot slightly to verify her
suspicions. It felt like the tiny comm unit that Plass had showed
them on
Expunger
.
The unit that Major Fiske was supposed to give her before their
meeting with Tausek. Could it be that he had not betrayed them
after all?

Another thought crushed her elation. It
could also be a simple explosive device. Maybe Fiske planned to
blow them all up and blame Tausek’s death on her in some sinister
plan to make Stoll the next ruler of Dakru.

Out of the corner of her eye, she slid him a
cautious glance, but his demeanor was detached and stoic.

A sliver of hope glowed. It was all she had
to cling to.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Decker stood watch in the underground tunnel
as Barrios leaned against the wall behind him and wheezed. “Who
thought this was a good idea? In case you hadn’t noticed, my
running days are over.”

“
Keep it down. We don’t
need any company right now,” Decker whispered over his shoulder. “I
can’t see a thing, and there’s no cover in this corridor. When
Rourke comes back from reconnaissance with a clear sign, we’re off
again.”

Suddenly, a laser blast and a small
explosion filled the corridor. Barrios jumped. “What was that?”

Decker swore, lowering his pistol. Smoke
drifted from the scattered pieces of the Servo-unit he’d just shot.
The smell of burnt wiring filled the air.

“
It came up behind me so
fast, I thought it was a guard,” he explained, holding his hands up
helplessly.

Barrios gaped at him. “A half-meter tall
guard? And since when have guards whizzed along sucking dirt off
the floor?”

Decker shot him a scathing look. “Hey, be
grateful I was covering your big butt.”

Then he froze as footsteps approached. He
turned back around, leveled his weapon and waited.

Rourke emerged from the darkness almost on
top of them. He raised his eyebrows at the laser pistol aimed at
his midsection. Breathlessly he held up a hand. “Easy, Decker.
Don’t get tight on me now.”

Decker lowered the weapon and frowned.
“Sorry. This place is getting too busy. Next time, whistle
first.”

Rourke looked down at the charred remains of
a Servo-unit and turned to them with a look of disbelief. “I leave
you boys alone for a minute and you start terrorizing small,
defenseless cleaning equipment. New rule. No shooting unless the
enemy comes up to your knees.”

Decker hung his head. “This is going to be
all over the galaxy, isn’t it?”

Rourke smiled wide. “You got that right. I
haven’t had a good story for the saloons in a long time.”

“
Do you think they’ll miss
this one?” Decker looked down at the smoldering metal.

Rourke snorted. “I doubt it. There’s about a
million of those things down here.”

Decker’s expression brightened. “So what did
you find?”

Rourke leaned back against the wall. “This
corridor empties into a larger one about thirty meters down. Looks
like pedestrian traffic only, lots of doors running along it. Can’t
tell the direction, but I’d guess it’s east-west. No activity that
I could see, so I checked out what would be the west branch. It
intersects with a main artery—double lanes of motorized traffic. It
was pretty busy, but I’d say that’s our only option at this point
unless you want to spend a lifetime down here trying to find
another way. Sooner or later, that artery is going to hit something
big.”

“
Just how extensive are
these tunnels?” Decker gasped.

Rourke wiped sweat off his forehead. “Very.
I’d say they run under the entire city.”

“
That would explain why
none of the buildings are over a few levels tall. This underground
infrastructure could never support them,” Decker surmised. “I’ll
bet the natives don’t have a clue what’s down here.”

“
That means that everyone
we meet is going to be armed and dangerous,” muttered
Barrios.

“
Exactly right,” Rourke
agreed. “Sounds like we have a borderline plan. Let’s
go.”

Barrios asked, “Speaking of plans, what’s
the escape route for getting out of here once we find them?”

Decker looked at Rourke. “Well?”

Rourke put his hands on his hips. “Hey, I
got us down here. I thought you were going to come up with getting
us out.”

Decker raised the tracker unit in
self-defense. “Don’t look at me. I’m in charge of navigation.”

Barrios shook his head and lumbered down the
corridor in disgust. “Forget it, just forget it. What was I
thinking?”

They covered the first leg of their journey
unspotted. A primary artery appeared exactly as Rourke had
described. Rourke brought them to a halt behind a doorway as an
occasional shuttle whizzed by. Traffic was light with a slow stream
of shuttles and supply vehicles.

Rourke studied the traffic. “Looks like most
of the shuttles run on timed intervals. They probably have
pre-programmed destinations as well. Unless we want to walk all the
way to the tower, we’re going to have to steal a shuttle. One
that’s not on autopilot.”

Decker groaned. “That means a driver. A
driver means a weapon.”

“
Generally, yes,” Rourke
said, his attention locked on a lone shuttle some distance away
closing on them rapidly. “That’s the one. Two guards in the
front.”

He nodded to Decker. “If you see a firearm,
shoot. These guys are too good to mess around with. Here we
go.”

Barrios demanded, “How are you going to stop
an armed shuttle?”

Without answering, the two men stepped out
from the cover of the doorway together. Immediately, the shuttle
driver raised a weapon. Rourke and Decker fired their laser pistols
simultaneously. Rourke’s blast struck the shuttle driver in the
head. Decker’s took out the guard on the passenger side. Without a
driver, the small shuttle slowed to a stop almost at their feet.
Only then did they notice another man in the semi-enclosed
passenger section.

“
Nice going.” Barrios
grinned as he emerged from the doorway.

“
Hold on,” Rourke warned,
holding a hand up to stop him. “There’s another one in the
back.”

He approached the man with his weapon
raised. He could see through the open sides that the man wore wrist
restraints.

“
This is your stop,” Rourke
told him.

Decker came around the side, took one look
at the man he’d seen during his recent research into Dakru’s files
and leveled his weapon at the man’s head.

“
Plass,” Decker
snarled.

Stunned, Rourke glanced at Decker. “Isn’t
this the man who captured them?”

“
Yes,” Decker hissed. “At
least I’ll make sure he dies for that.”

Before Decker could fire, Rourke put his
hand on the end of the weapon and pointed it to the floor. Decker
turned on him. “What are you doing?”

“
Let’s think about this
first.” Rourke addressed Plass. “Why the restraints?”

“
I am now an enemy of
Tausek’s. If you would give me a few minutes, I can explain the
entire situation.”

Rourke’s head shot up, his eyes searching
for what his ears could hear. “Incoming traffic. Get in. We need to
move.”

The men scrambled into the shuttle with
Rourke at the controls and Barrios riding next to him in the
cockpit section. Decker sat in the back with Plass. They
accelerated quickly, putting distance between themselves and the
shuttle behind them.

Decker checked his tracker unit. “The
signal’s not so good down here, but I think they are south of us.
We need to take the right branch.”

Then he turned to Plass. “You better have
one good story or I’m going to feed what’s left of you to the
Servo-units.”

“
How much further to the
tower?” Rourke called back to Decker.

Decker checked their coordinates on his
tracker unit and replied, “About a kilometer to go.”

Barrios looked at Rourke. “Problem?”

Rourke shook his head and checked behind
them for traffic. “The closer we get to that tower, the nastier
it’s going to become. Do you have any idea what our chances are of
finding them? Stone must be crazy. No woman is worth this kind of
trouble.”

Barrios grinned. “Jealous?”

Rourke snorted. “No. In fact—”

“
Look out!” Barrios
shouted, pointing to the left.

A bulky ground shuttle shot out of a side
tunnel beside them, veering into their lane. Rourke jerked the
controls hard to the right, but it was too late. The other vehicle
caught their back end and knocked them into the side wall. The
impact spun them around until they were facing the massive shuttle
head-on. Braking thrusters roared as the big shuttle slid to a halt
before them—nose to nose. Both sets of occupants were too surprised
to do anything but stare.

Then Rourke bellowed, “What’s the matter
with you?” He pointed at the spot where Berman’s shuttle had
entered the main tunnel. “Can’t you read the signs?”

Barrios nudged him hard. “Rourke, shut up. I
don’t think it’s a good idea to piss them off.”

Rourke rounded on him. “Why not? Those
idiots could have killed us.”

“
That’s why.” Barrios
grimaced and nodded toward the other shuttle. No less than ten
weapons were pointed at them as d’Hont poured from the rear
entrance of the shuttle.

Breath hissed through Rourke’s teeth. “Good
point.”

A clearly annoyed, very large man barked,
“Kill them all and leave their bodies inside. Quickly and
quietly.”

Barrios muttered to Rourke, “Now would be a
good time for a brilliant idea.”

“
Major Berman, that won’t
be necessary.” A voice came from behind him. Plass stepped out of
the passenger section. The restraints were gone.

Berman blinked in surprise and smiled
broadly. “Commander. Good to see you alive.”

Plass grinned back. “It’s been an
interesting journey. The details can wait. We need to get moving
before another shuttle comes along.”

“
What about them?” Berman
pointed to Rourke, Decker, and Barrios who were exiting their
disabled shuttle at gunpoint.

“
Lower your weapons,” Plass
ordered the d’Hont team surrounding them. He turned to Berman.
“They will be joining the rescue. I have briefed them. They have
agreed to the plan.” Plass nodded toward Berman’s shuttle. “I can
fill you in along the way.”

Grey’s rescue team and their weapons were
loaded aboard the back of the slave shuttle Berman’s unit had
seized, crowding an already packed rear storage section. Plass and
Berman took a position in the rear section as well, directly behind
the small hatch door to the cockpit section. Although they were
blind to the outside, a communications link to the cockpit would
let them know what was happening.

“
I assume your units had no
problems, Major,” Plass began as the shuttle
accelerated.

Berman snorted. “The plan worked perfectly.
We flew in as slave freighters and secured our target landing bay
in under ten minutes. All the other units are in position around
the city and moving toward the tower now. We will be in position at
the designated time.”

“
The plan has been
altered,” Plass said coolly. His eyes met Berman’s. “Lieutenant
Fiske has betrayed us. He reports to Stoll.”

Berman’s nostrils flared with anger. “That
bastard. He had us all fooled.”